


The Four Times Cas Feels It, and the One Time Dean Says It.

by tomlinblows



Category: Supernatural, destiel - Fandom
Genre: Destiel - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-27
Updated: 2015-06-27
Packaged: 2018-04-06 09:42:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4216887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomlinblows/pseuds/tomlinblows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>based on the post about 10x23 where cas can see what people love by touching them, which explains all the destiel touchy touch we see all the time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Four Times Cas Feels It, and the One Time Dean Says It.

**Author's Note:**

> just a drabble ficlet thing it inspired. get ready for some honey nut feelios

**_November 3rd, 1983_**  

 

_It’s Dean Winchester’s first, of many nights to come, night in a suburban motel room with no soft carpets or stray toys lying around. He sits on his bed and watches his dad tuck Sammy in to the crib they rented; pulled it out from the closet behind the front desk. It was stained and cracked and not at all safe enough to hide him from monsters, but Dean thought the monsters would give him and Sam a break for a while. The stench of the room stuck to his pajamas and he was starting to forget what his fathers smile looked like. He decided things were scary enough already._

 

_“Bed, Dean.” Dean obeyed his father, but before sinking himself under the plaid green covers, hopped onto his feet and ran to his brothers crib, climbing over to press his lips against Sammy’s head. Afterwords, he lets his face hang over Sam’s, wondering how after all the panic and smoke his little brother still smelled like home._

 

_Two strong hands press into his sides, and the next thing he knows he’s in his three-sizes too big bed that feels dirtier than the one at Uncle Bobby’s. John kisses his forehead and lingers his hands around Dean’s cheeks, frowning down at his son. Dean tries to smile._

 

_“It’s okay, Dad,” he says. “Mom still loves you. I love you, too. I’ll never leave you.”_

 

_He waits for his dad to smile back, or run his hand through Dean’s hair like he did whenever Dean would have nightmares- but he just stood up and crawled over to his own sheets, settling in before clicking the lights off. It’s so dark that when he closes his eyes there’s no difference, which makes it easy to sleep. And he does, quicker than usual, dreaming of yesterday morning’s apple pie life. Four-year old Dean didn’t know this, but he was going to have that dream a lot more than once in his life. That dream was going to be the thing he would live to fight for- the thing that he would choose in any lifetime, under any circumstance, always._

 

_Hours later when his shoulder’s spring and his alarm clock reads half past three, he’s awake at the sound of the door slam. He knows his dad left the room, but he also knows he’ll be back in the morning. He knows nothing different, anyway. Not yet. Dean tiptoes his way over to the crib, peering over to make sure Sam’s still sleeping, relief spreading across his chest._

 

_“Don’t worry, Sammy. I’m here. I’m not gonna let anything bad happen to you.”_

 

_Another hour passes and John or the Impala has yet to return, leaving Dean awake and shaking in his pungent olive bed. He wishes he could sleep, even if it meant having a nightmare, even if it meant never waking up again. When he sleeps he is happy, and so are his parents and so is his brother. Sleeping is good._

 

_His mind wanders to last night- it was Mary’s night to tuck him in, and she sat on his bed in a white nightgown. Her hair was down, and the light from Dean’s window made it seem glowing. Dean thought she was so beautiful. She hugged him tight to her chest before bringing the blankets up under his chin, smoothing away the hairs from his forehead. They smiled at each other, and she whispered goodnight._

 

_“I love you,” Dean mumbled, his eyes heavy._

 

_She kissed his cheek._

 

_“Angels are watching over you.”_

 

_The memory fades and Dean is back where he started, huffing and puffing on his mattress, willing away every tear like he was supposed to. He wonders where his angel is now, and why he thought it was a good idea to take this week off for vacation. He sighs in frustration- and sadness, and loneliness, and utter confusion as to why this was happening to his family- and folds his hands over on top of his chest, squeezing his eyes shut._

 

_“Hey, angels. Whichever…” Dean thinks for a moment, remembering what his dad would say when he was angry, or when he had been monkeying around under the car all afternoon and the damned thing still wouldn’t start, and scowls. “…son of a bitch up there has been watching over me, you aren’t doing a very good job. I can make sure Sammy’s okay down here, but I know you have my mom, and you have to give her back to us. Take me instead- I’m a good little angel, she even used to say so. Just give her back… please.”_

 

_Dean cried, his voice too small and broken to be heard and turned his head into his pillow. He cursed and whined and pleaded to just about anyone up there listening, and little did Dean know, a very special angel had his ears turned all the way up for him._

 

_He drifted in and out of consciousness the rest of the night, trying to keep watch for Sammy, and when sunrise came around John still wasn’t back. Dean had stopped walking up to the window to check. By morning he was asleep, the last thing he remembered being the sound of wings and two fingers on his forehead._

 

_Dean knew it was sleep deprivation, but he almost hoped they were his mothers, and that by the time he woke again, his angel would be back on duty and none of this had even happened. The angel would try his best, but even he could not find a way around Dean Winchester’s story._

 

_They would just have to make it up as they go._

 

_

 

_‘Cause I’ve got you now, boy. And I’m never letting you-_

 

Dean saw blackness in its truest form; stark, and swallowing. Darkness that he’s spent his entire life familiar with. Behind his eyes each time they shut, in the bruises left on his arms after Dad had one too many or none at all, in his little brothers smile- Sammy, who Dean would protect from his first to last day- after the world had bought him for all he stocked. Dean Winchester knew darkness better than anybody. But he also knew light. 

 

Light was the way Sam moved around Jessica. Light was the last memory of his mother, electric hair and golden smile. Light was bursting out of him when John threw him over his back when he got home from work. Light was the headlights through an Indiana midnight drive in the Impala with the radio blasting loud enough to shake the sky.

 

Light was the first thing Dean saw when he was pulled from 2014, and it sounded like _“nice timing, Cas.”_

 

Light reflects. 

 

_“We had an appointment.”_  

 

Dean’s legs weaken, and he sinks back into his shoulders, too tired to fight the smile he’s mastered at fending off. He looks at Castiel, brown hair tousled and stare wavering between his eyes and his lips, and Dean wishes things were different, he does. Before he knows it, he’s reaching out a hand and stretching his fingers over Cas’ shoulder. Castiel was no stranger to rebellion, not anymore, and he had defied a lot of things for Dean Winchester. All of it, for him. 

 

Under any circumstance, in any life, with any rules- Castiel finds some way to choose Dean Winchester, and under any circumstance, in any life, with any rules, that sounds a lot like love. The angel can see Dean mouthing words- _“don’t ever change”_ \- but he can’t hear him. 

 

Not from where he is. 

 

Not from his Heaven. 

 

Deans hand drops. Cas is still smiling, his balance decreasing for a few seconds, the wind rocking him. He wondered how Dean could see such darkness of himself when Cas saw such radiance, he squinted. Dean pulled out his phone and Cas struggled with standing more than an inch away from him. 

 

Angels were known as many things, but most commonly as the stars. Over centuries, Castiel had heard all the lore about the connection between his kind and space, but never made any sense of it. Angels were… well, selfish. They were obedient, and self-righteous, and ‘too far up their own feathery asses’, as the Winchesters would say. Angels had never been anything to look up to for Castiel, who had always found his eyes focused downwards. 

 

Humanity. 

 

Now, they were the ones filled with all the stars. 

 

-

 

Food. Sleep. Water. 

 

Three things Castiel, as an Angel of the Lord, doesn't need. But he remembers- in a movie, maybe- seeing people splash their faces with it for purification in a situation. That’s what brings him down to the body of water he stumbled across in Purgatory. The only pure thing about the place, he thinks. And hopefully Dean. 

 

Dean. He can hear him calling out his name for the millionth time since they arrived; screaming it in prayers, pushing it out through tears, cursing it through gritted teeth, telling him to come back to him, that he needs him, that he loves-

 

No. Never that. Not with words. 

 

But this time was different. His name was echoing through the trees, refracting off the lake, being shouted from a voice to his right. Castiel rises, and it’s coming closer to him. The feeling, he longs for it, he aches. An Angel praying for a man. 

 

“Cas,” Dean pulls him to his chest before he can get the chance to pinch himself (another thing from a movie, he recalls) and he wants to smile- but not here. His arms are stronger from constant use and he’s scruffier than usual around the neck. Their skin is plated in mud and sweat and blood, and Dean has someone else by his side- a vampire. The longing Cas has been plagued with finally subsides, and Deans laughter- _fuck,_ Deans laughter- burrows under his skin like stolen grace. Cas wishes he’d stop, that doesn't belong here, but for a second he can feel the stars landing upon his shoulder, crawling into his ears and illuminating his brain with _Dean, Dean, Dean._  

 

His eyes aren’t as green as they used to be. Cas can barely look at him; he left him, alone. Everything is so, so complicated. 

 

Dean introduces him to Benny, and they argue. Dean, filling the shoes of the protecter his entire life, never seems to wrap his head around the idea of being protected himself. _I watch over you,_ Cas bites back his tongue. _Even here, where hope is a forgotten virtue, I watch over you and I love y-_

 

“I prayed to you, Cas- every night!” 

 

_He knows, Dean. If he slept, they’d keep him awake for days on end._

 

“I know.”

 

_He hears you every time he closes his eyes, and through every blink in-between._  

 

“You know, and you didn’t-“

 

_Come back to him._  

 

“What the hell’s wrong with you?”

 

_I love you, Dean Winchester._

 

But he can’t, not here, not ever, so instead. 

 

“I am an Angel in a land of abominations. There have been things hunting me from the moment we arrived! These are not just monsters, Dean, they’re Leviathan. I have a price on my head and I’ve been trying to stay one step ahead of them to keep them away from you.”

 

He wishes he wasn't forced to enroll in the Winchester’s school of how to deal with feelings. Push them away, cover them up, bottle them so deep down you can barely feel a damn thing at all in the end. He wishes things were different, he does. 

 

“Cas,” he hears again. “We’re going home.” 

 

_Oh, Dean Winchester, don't you know?_

 

Castiel looks into his eyes.

 

_He’s already there._

 

_

 

 

“I can reason with Dean. He’s a good man.” 

 

_Let him press his hand onto your shoulder, Naomi. You’ll understand._

 

“Kill him.”

 

_Never. Not for you, not for anybody._

 

“Do you know what that tablet can do for us? For Heaven?”

 

_I won’t-_

 

“I won’t hurt Dean.”

 

_You’re no Angel. You’re a man._

 

“Yes. You will. You are.”

 

He’s standing inches from Naomi, but he feels a hand press into his shoulder somewhere. It’s luminosity, it’s love, there’s green and green and gold and stars, heavenly stars- it’s Dean. He reaches his arm- _Dean_ \- but the feeling is gone. A crash into the wall, the power of an Angel’s hand. She- no _he,_ has hurt Dean. 

 

Cas slams his hand down, fighting against her, fighting Dean, fighting everything he’s ever been told about his kind and humanity and how the stars are not on Earth, they are above. 

 

“Please.” 

 

_Make this stop._

 

“End this, Castiel.”

 

_Punch, punch, pun-_  

 

“Cas,” Dean wheezes. “I know you’re in there. I know you can hear me. Cas, it’s me. We’re family.”

 

_We’re more._

 

“We need you.”

 

_Look what I’ve done to you._

 

“I need you.”

 

_I love you, Dean Winchester._

 

“You have to choose, Castiel. Us or them.”

 

And so the Angel, staring down at the man, dropped his weapon, his faith, his family- heard it crash to the floor like waves on a shoreline. Dean grunted in pain, leaning onto his knees and Castiel knew this was how it would always be. Through hijacking, through power, through Heaven and Hell and Earth itself… he would find his way back to Dean, and he would choose him. 

 

“I’m so sorry Dean.”

 

_I’m so sorry Dean._

 

“So this Naomi has been controlling you since she got you out of Purgatory? Well, what broke the connection?”

 

_Millions of little green stars, Dean Winchester. Always bringing me home._

 

_-_

 

Cas knew where he was the minute he arrived. He smiled. As a human, he had one of these, but never expected he’d get here. He noticed there were big green trees with bees flying around, and the air was soft. His toes wiggled around in the grass with the worms and the dirt and he laughed and laughed. The weight of the world was off of his shoulders for the first time since creation; he was free. This was Heaven. Castiel closes his eyes. 

 

When they open, the sky is painted with all different hues of oranges and reds and purples and he stands, like a muse in front of an artist. He smells apple… (pie, maybe?) so strongly that it’s everywhere. Something furry pads across his feet and he squats. 

 

“Hello friend,” he smiles, dragging his fingers behind the cat’s ears and down over it’s tail. Several more cats approach, until they’re waddling into his lap and napping together like a class of kindergarteners. 

 

He’s never smiled so much before, and he can’t even worry about it here. Here, things are different- everything is finally different. The cats trip over each other and run off behind him, Cas turning to follow when he stops. 

 

“That’s little Kirk Hammett, and over there is like twenty Jimmy Page’s. You can name this one.”

 

Cas stares at the kitten placed in his lap, and gently lowers it to the grass. It scoots off to join the rest and he brings himself to his feet again. Gingerly, he steps forward, eyes gliding over every inch in front of him until he meets green. 

 

“Dean Winchester,” he says, pushing back tears until he can’t anymore. “I have loved you so very much.”

 

Dean takes him into his arms, bringing his hands around Cas’ shoulders- but he doesn't need to, here.

 

“I love you too, Cas.” Dean says, ripping Castiel into pieces so small he feels like he’s fading away. Instantly, suddenly, catastrophically he is. The words fumble around in his head like scrabble pieces, nothing making sense, nothing spelling out on the board except  _No, no, no,_ he thinks, _anything but this._  

 

“You know you’ll find me again somewhere,” Dean says, his voice sounding like it did through the telephone. “Everywhere, Cas. And I’ll be there waiting.” 

 

Dean’s freckles look more and more like stars and suddenly he’s falling and everything is black, black, black, until-

 

_“Cas!”_

 

_Thank God._

 

_“Dean…”_

 

_I lov- not here. Never here. Only there, and everywhere else. I will love you so, so much._

 

Hours later in the Impala, with Sam snoring in the back seat which can be heard even over the engine, Dean glances over at Cas. 

 

“Back there at Charlie’s Angels apartment,” he says, half smirking. “When you were, you know… what did you see?” 

 

Cas smiled, bitterly, looking up at the night sky through the window, seeing only one thing up there. 

 

“Stars,” he says. 

 

“Stars? Like the twinkling things above us?” Dean scoffs, warm heartedly. 

 

_Something like that, Dean Winchester. Something like stars._

**Author's Note:**

> i like to hear from you guys very much, maybe comment??? :-)


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